Culture & International History VI: Visions of Humanity

The conference Culture and International History VI will take place from 6 – 8 May 2019 in Berlin. The conference marks the 20th anniversary of the symposium cycle that began in 1999 and has since taken place in Wittenberg, Frankfurt, Cologne, and Berlin; key themes and contributions have been published in Berghahn Books’ series Explorations in Culture and International History (Oxford, New York, since 2003).

“Visions of Humanity” seeks to address the growing interest in historical ideas, statements, policies and actions invoking trans-, international and global audiences in the name of common concern. These may be manifest in activism relating to human rights, policies invoking humanitarian action, cultural output imagining trans-border societies, ideas wedding technology and the human, international protest against mechanisms of marginalization, cross-cultural canon-building (“the humanities”) and attempts to define “humanity” in academic disciplines. International history is full of people and organizations invoking visions of humanity in an effort to create common notions of identity (“we”) based on international and global reference points. But who constituted “we”? What made “us” similar? Who was part of humanity, who wasn’t? What were the mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion in humanity? And who defined and contested these criteria and decisions?

The symposium will focus on visions of humanity as they crystallize in the history of diplomatic and informal fora as well as in the context of specific debates. Specifically, the conference seeks to compare 20th-century approaches in North American and transatlantic history to other regions and earlier periods.

Conference organizers:

Jessica Gienow-HechtSebastian JobsSönke Kunkel

For more information or to attend the conference without delivering a paper, contact the conference organizers at: verena.specht@fu-berlin.de